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An experienced reader uses the poem as an agent of inquiry.This makes poetry very exciting, unstable,and interactive.- John Barton

Who is the ideal reader? God only knows.- John Barton

I feel very connected to poets across the country.- John Barton

I find it exhausting to administer a magazine without an office or paid staff.- John Barton

The poet must decide not to impose his feelings inorder to write without sentimentality.- John Barton

Reading should be a repeat performance.- John Barton

I have been told by a member of the board of one ofCanada's most prominent literary magazines that a submissionof mine once caused a great deal of controversy.- John Barton

I became intrigued with colour theory.The absurd pronouncements of the Colour Institute,a group that decides what colours are hot each year or season,amused me.- John Barton

Poets can't resist the dramatic pull of their livesand so inevitably write autobiographical verse.- John Barton

If poetry alters the way in which the reader views the world,then it has had its desired effect.- John Barton

I consider a poem to be a kind of experiment wherea number of elements are brought together under testconditions to see how they will interact to create meaning or relevance.- John Barton

To me many short poems read and write like beginningsthat simply whet my appetite;I want to get over that.- John Barton

In the past, poetry came in the form of spells andchants used to effect change.- John Barton

Most victims of my autobiographical verse are either far too polite,remarkably understanding unaware that I have written poems about them.- John Barton

Writing can sometimes be exploitative.I like to take a few steps of remove in order to respectthe privacy of the subject.If readers make the link, they have engaged with the poem.- John Barton

A literary journal is intended to connect writer with reader;the role of the editor is to mediate.- John Barton

I sometimes like to tinker with poems that have failed,ones that I have sent aside.Even years afterward, I will revisit them if thereis something about them that I cannot give up on.- John Barton

You can never step into the same book twice,because you are different each time you read it.- John Barton

Some readers allow their prejudices to blind them.A good reader knows how to disregard inappropriate responses.- John Barton

The community of poets I belong to is not as close as it used to be,if only for the fact that our lives have become busier:jobs,children, and the like.- John Barton

The reader's challenge is to replicate the experimentby reading the poem and to draw their own conclusions.- John Barton

Poets have to be sensitive to their audience,but it does not mean that they censor themselves.I realise my audience is diverse.Some will read with empathy and curiosity while others will take offense.- John Barton

We are comfortable with the fact that we cannot knowpersonally what happened in the world before we were born,yet we are uncomfortable with the notion that we willstop engaging with time at some point in the future.- John Barton

My obsession with time informs my poetry so completelyit is hard for me to summarize it.We want time to pass, for new things to happen to us,we want to hold on to certain moments,we don't want our lives to end.- John Barton

The experiment of the poem is mostly intuitive.I write the first draft, pulling in the various elements that interest me,in the hope that their being combined will lead to some kind of insight.- John Barton

Footprints in the sands of time...Where have you been?Where are you going?Why are you going there?- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The world is perfect. It's a mess.It has always been a mess.We are not going to change it.Our job is to straighten out our own lives.- Joseph Campbell

For all sad words of tongue and pen,The saddest are these, "It might have been.- John Greenleaf Whittier

Sing like no one's listening,love like you've never been hurt,dance like nobody's watching,and live like its heaven on earth.- Mark Twain

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who daredbelieve that something inside of them was superior to circumstance.- Bruce Barton

My experience has been that work isalmost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.- Eleanor Roosevelt

I have always been regretting thatI was not as wise as the day I was born.- Henry David Thoreau

Ever has it been that love knows not its own depthuntil the hour of separation.- Khalil Gibran

Calm provides clarity. Pause to considerthe gifts you have been given,the difference you have madeand the direction in which you are headed.- Anonymous

It is never too late to become what you might have been.- George Eliot

The highest thinkers of the ages,the seers of the tribes and the nations,have been optimists.- Helen Keller

Work like you don't need the money.Love like you've never been hurt.Dance like nobody's watching.- Satchel Paige

Love like you've never been hurt,dance like no one is watching,live as though heaven is on earth.- Satchel Paige

What is a weed? A plant whose virtueshave never been discovered.- Ralph Waldo Emerson

To have done anything just for moneyis to have been truly idle.- Henry David Thoreau

Education is what survives whenwhat has been learned has been forgotten.- B. F. Skinner

What work I have done I have done because it has been play.If it had been work I shouldn't have done it.- Mark Twain

An "always been" does not mean I must choose "what must be."- Mary Anne Radmacher

Re-examine all that you have been told...dismiss that which insults your soul.- Walt Whitman

All life is change.Release your attachment to the way things have been,and wend your way joyfullythrough life's unfolding majesty.- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

My life has been filled with terrible misfortune;most of which never happened.- Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Most of the important things in the worldhave been accomplished by peoplewho have kept on tryingwhen there seemed to be no hope at all.- Dale Carnegie

Anger is a killing thing:it kills the man who angers,for each rage leaves him less than he had been before -it takes something from him.- Louis L'Amour

Like a Butterfly, I have been Rebornwith Bold Colors and Strong Wings.- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The heart is always right -if there's a question of choosing between the mind and the heart -because mind is a creation of the society.It has been educated.You have been given it by the society, not by existence.The heart is unpolluted.- Osho

The wish for healing has always been half of health.- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Competition has been shown to be usefulup to a certain point and no further,but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today,begins where competition leaves off.- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Pick up a stone that feels good to youand is small enough to hold in one hand.Consider how long that stone has been aroundand what enormous pressure it has experienced.Draw strength from its long history.- Mary Anne Radmacher

For as long as I can remember, I've been searching for something,some reason why we're here. What are we doing here? Who are we?If this is a chance to find outeven just a little part of that answer...I don't know, I think it's worth a human life. Don't you?- the Jodie Foster movie Contact (1997)

Life is too short, time is too precious,and the stakes are too highto dwell on what might have been.- Hilary Clinton

I accept everything that ever has been,with no regrets, no resentments, and no call for vengeance.- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

No written law has ever been more bindingthan unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.- Carrie Chapman Catt

No person was ever honored for what he received.Honor has been the reward for what he gave.- Calvin Coolidge

Failure does not exist.Failure is simply someone else's opinion of howa certain act should have been completed.Once you believe that no act must be performedin any specific other-directed way,then failing becomes impossible.- Wayne Dyer

How far you go in life depends on you beingtender with the young,compassionate with the aged,sympathetic with the strivingand tolerant of the weak and the strong.Because someday in life you will have been all of these.- George Washington Carver

I accept that no one else has ever been to blamefor either my joy or my suffering.The entire cause of all my joys and all my sufferingsis my own emotional response to the events of my life.- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Visualize your end result as having already been accomplished.Let the image of your success play on the giant screenin full color with surround sound -so real you can smell and taste it.- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The world has always been in an uproar,and it always will be.Choose Peace. Choose to live with Peace.Choose to interact peacefully with everyone -especially those whose instinct is not to be peaceful.- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

One never notices what has been done;one can only see what remains to be done.- Marie Curie